Southern Comfort’s Next Chapter — Does the new ad work?

Southern Comfort has launched the next chapter in the “Whatever’s Comfortable” campaign that I have been following for about a year (Aug14 and Dec19, 2012 aswell as Jan 17, 2013). So far, according to Brown Forman, sales trends have turned around by 6% and the brand grew for the first time since 2008.

This latest effort marks a change in character from the original award winning effort, “Beaches,” which featured an interesting, everyday guy comfortable in his own skin as he casually walks down the beach. Here is the original.

The new ad execution has a different character but the same attitude. “We want to champion consumers to ‘be their awesome selves’ and that attitude comes out through this work,” said Mark Bacon, SVP, Managing Director, Southern Comfort. “We’re comfortable being Southern Comfort and we want our consumers to embody that same attitude about themselves.”

Here’s the ad by Wieden + Kennedy. I enjoyed the original ad a great deal but this one works for me as well.

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1 comment

I was nervous to watch it because I loved the original so much, but I love this too! Again, so much going on, on so many levels. The salon setting delivers ‘indulgence’. No one on the planet would question this man’s masculinity, and he is totally confident in that fact because he is comfortable being pampered. There are multiple cues to Southern, down-home qualities…that style of salon complete with the woman in old-school curlers, obviously his boots and mustache, the music. The tenor of their exchange has a Southern subtlety, it’s not quite a flirtation, just polite acknowledgement.

I do think the product receded just a little bit in this spot, though I certainly got anytime relaxation out of it. And he was sipping it neat, like a proper whiskey, delivering more man-cred.